“You are one who has been travelling over all countries, to establish new-fangled societies; heads and spiritual directors, hot-brained cobblers, and the meanest class of men; fellows that have nothing to lose, all big with venom against the clergy of the present Establishment, and despising the laws of the State, and the peaceful constitution of the realm. You are perpetually sowing divisions, and urging on the bigotry of your disciples, and their implacable malice, by your belying, railing, and scandalising the ministers of the Church, as well as by treating as heathens and reprobates of the infinitely good Being, all others, who dare despise your hellish doctrines and practices. You exactly copy after Cromwell, the Whitefieldof the last century, in artfully compounding Churchmen and Dissenters, people of all sorts and denominations, to bring about your design of ruining the present constitution. When I see a man, of your vast importance, railing, hectoring, and bullying your superiors, I cannot help thinking of a pert liquor amongst us, which foams, and bounces, and sputters, and makes a mighty ado; and yet all the while is but bottled small-beer.
“Your favourite method of wounding characters in a scrip of prayer, to shew the world how kindly you can forgive, after you have been publicly railing at them for nothing, puts me in mind of Jack in the Tale of a Tub; who was mighty fond of falling down on his knees, and turning up his eyes in the midst of a kennel, as if at his devotions; but who, when curiosity attracted men to laugh or to listen, would, of a sudden, bespatter them with mud.”
Much more of the same kind of scurrility, and of even worse, might be given; but the last paragraph in the “Gentleman’s” ill-mannered pamphlet must suffice.
“Thus ends your railing; and, like a woman that has fought herself out of breath, when you can spit no more of your malice, you tell us, you would ‘not bring a railing accusation against any.’ What a monstrous fib is that! ‘Neither would I,’ you add, ‘when giving a reason of the hope that is in me, do it any otherwise than with meekness and fear.’ There you fib again most desperately! Why, my dear meek soul, of a sudden, you have certainly forgot yourself; and your darling spirit of bitterness, that has possessed you through the whole Letter, at length, seems to be jaded. However, it cannot help fibbing still; and there is not a more remarkable instance of this, than in your last Judas’ kiss, where you would have their lordships believe, you are ‘their most dutiful son and servant.’”
These are fair specimens of the scolding of this zealous defender of the Bishop of London and his brethren, and of Church and State. Whitefield never noticed the defence, though written by a Gentleman of Pembroke College, Oxford. Another pamphlet, however, written by a Church dignitary of some importance, received more attention. This was “A Serious and Expostulatory Letter to the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, on occasion of his late Letter to the Bishop of London and other Bishops; and in Vindication of the ‘Observations upon the Conduct and Behaviour of a certain Sect usually distinguished by the Name of Methodists,’ not long since published.By Thomas Church, A.M., Vicar of Battersea, and Prebendary of St. Paul’s, London.[95]1744.” (8vo. 60 pp.) Want of space prevents the insertion of lengthy extracts from Mr. Church’s letter, but its scope may be guessed by the following sentences:—
“Field-preaching is forbidden by the statute, as having a tendency to sedition and tumults.” “Your extravagances have been the scorn of the profane, and have strengthened the prejudices of some against our religion itself.” “I never knew nor heard of any one instance of a parish in England so carelessly attended as the charge committed to you in Georgia, the only place, I think, to which you have had any regular appointment. How unfit are you, of all men, to upbraid the clergy with non-residence, with being shepherds who leave their flocks, and let them perish for lack of knowledge.”
Whitefield immediately replied to this, in an 8vo. pamphlet of 20 pages, bearing the following title:—“A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Thomas Church, M.A., Vicar of Battersea, and Prebendary of St. Paul’s; in Answer to his Serious and Expostulatory Letter to the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, on occasion of his late Letter to the Bishop of London, and other Bishops. By George Whitefield, A.B., late of Pembroke College, Oxford. London: printed by W. Strahan, for J. Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in Ludgate Street, and sold at the Tabernacle, near Moor-Fields, 1744.” The letter is dated, “London, May 22, 1744,” and its biographical sections must be briefly noticed.
Whitefield had often been taunted and even threatened for not using the Liturgy in many of his public services. In reference to this, he writes:—
“As for my irregularities in curtailing the Liturgy, or not using the Common Prayer in the fields, I think it needless to make any apology till I am called thereto in a judicial way by my ecclesiastical superiors. They have laws and courts. In and by those, ecclesiastics are to be judged; and I am ready to make a proper defence, whenever it shall be required at my hands.”
Mr. Church and many others had retorted Whitefield’s attacks on non-resident clergy, by telling him he had been guilty of non-residence himself. To this Whitefield replied as follows:—